


i'm only pretty sure that i can't take it anymore

by nuricurry



Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Because that's what this is, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, What is the opposite of fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24742537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuricurry/pseuds/nuricurry
Summary: He gets to walk away when he feels trapped and awkward, and Hyoga has to pretend he doesn’t see him go, that it doesn’t burn him up inside to know that he can’t even stand to be in the same room as him anymore.
Relationships: Cygnus Hyōga/Phoenix Ikki
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	i'm only pretty sure that i can't take it anymore

He lies when Seiya asks when things ended. _After that fight in Spain_ , he tells him, because it’s vague, it’s a time frame that falls between two other points of reference, it seems hazy and blurred and unimportant. He makes it sound like he doesn’t remember the exact day, the exact time when they stopped being ‘them’, and when he closed that chapter of his life, one that felt like it had been much shorter than it was supposed to be.

He lies to Shun about what his breaking point was, because he couldn’t very well spell out every flaw Ikki had, because while Shun was his friend, Ikki was his brother, and it felt shitty to make him feel like he had to pick sides. So he just told him what he told everyone else that asked, told him that they were _just different people now_. They grew up, and grew apart. That’s what happens sometimes, and it isn’t because he doesn’t care (because God does he care) it’s just that they aren’t good together anymore.

He wants to believe his own lies, but he can’t. Because it didn’t end in Spain, it didn’t stop because they changed. It ended before that, it ended because they were still the same two people they were when they were sixteen and that just wasn’t viable anymore. 

When they get called to Sanctuary for Shun’s inauguration, they stay on opposite sides of the room. It’s a dance they’ve mastered, a perfect synchronized routine of avoiding each other, of avoiding the looks and the comments and the anger. Because for as mature as they pretend to be around their friends, they’re both so fucking angry. Ikki is pissed that he ‘gave up’, and he’s pissed that Ikki stopped trying. Maybe they’re mad at each other for the same thing, just different names, different perspectives. 

Ikki has an excuse to make his appearance brief. He never sticks around for long, Sanctuary isn’t home to him, his place has always been on the fringes of their group rather than woven into the center. He gets to decide when he’s had enough, and Hyoga doesn’t, because he’s the one who has to be the supportive, attentive friend, the one that suggests that they have toasts and speeches and who tells everyone about how he couldn’t imagine anyone else more suited for the title of Pope other than Shun, who has been the voice of reason for their group since long before they saved the world countless times. Ikki’s Shun’s goddamn brother, and he gets to walk away when he feels trapped and awkward, and Hyoga has to pretend he doesn’t see him go, that it doesn’t burn him up inside to know that he can’t even stand to be in the same room as him anymore. 

So he drinks, because that’s what he’s allowed to do. He drinks and he laughs, and he doesn’t look at the door. He hugs Shun, he hugs Seiya, he hugs Shiryu, and he tells Saori that everything is going to be great. They’re growing up, the world is settling, and sooner rather than later they’re due to have that peace they’ve been working toward since they were kids. It’s enough for him. It has to be enough.

And it is, for a while. Until he’s twenty-nine, and the world falls to shit again.

It doesn’t take him long to realize that he’d gotten complacent; it was so easy to actually think that he moved on when he just kept telling himself that there was nothing else for him to do. 

At Ryuho’s first birthday, he had stayed in the room with the cake and the presents, while Ikki talked to Shiryu outside. That didn’t stop him from hearing him though, because while Shiryu’s house was full of noise and love, it was still small, and voices didn’t have very far to carry.

“Yeah, well, I felt like I should come see you,” he heard Ikki say, gruff as always, but not so rude, his voice a bit softer. Maybe it was his age. Maybe he was just tired; Hyoga certainly was. “It’s been awhile. I didn’t need you all bitching about how you were worried about me.”

Shiryu laughed, because he knew how Ikki was. Hyoga felt sick, the hot burn of bile and bitterness collecting into a knot in his throat. 

_When did you start caring about making other people worry?_ he wanted to say. As if that hadn’t been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as if that wasn’t exactly what Hyoga had screamed at him about, over and over again, when they were nineteen and he was so scared of losing someone else. 

That birthday party was seven years ago, and there had been others since then. Ones that they, without speaking, agreed to attend in shifts. Ones that had either Ikki present, or Hyoga, but never both. Because while they had grown up, had grown apart, they hadn’t really changed that much. They still stumbled over each other without meaning to. They still tried to make sure they never gave up first. A fucking game of chicken that had been going on since they were kids, a staring contest where if the loser blinked, it meant that they cared too much, they surrendered too much, and neither of them wanted to be the one who crumbled. Stubbornness for the sake of a fragile teenage male ego they both should have shed long ago. 

Now Hyoga was staring down the barrel of the age of thirty, and he remembered what it was like to be afraid of love, to be caught up in it and so, so lost for what to do.

“We need to work together,” Ikki says, as if Hyoga isn’t aware of that. As if he’s the reasonable one. As if that wasn’t all Hyoga had ever fucking asked of him, in all their years, as if Hyoga had been selfish and secretive and with his head so far up his ass he could turn himself inside out. 

“Yeah, I know that.” He does. He knows it so well. He knows that if they don’t work together, they’re going to end up dead. But he also knows that working together is going to kill him anyway. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we’re stupid teengers; we’re not in love with each other anymore.” 

“Is that what that was?” Ikki practically eats the filter of the cigarette he’s smoking, “I would have never guessed.”

He laughs, because it’s funny, to think that after all this time, Ikki would bother being any more honest than he was. It’s so stupid to think they’d change, because not changing was what brought them to this point in the first place.

He remembers drinking vodka at seventeen, riding Ikki’s bike in the rain, borrowing his jacket when the nights would get cold, and Ikki refused to share his warmth, despite the fact that he always burned so hot. He remembers kissing when they thought they were going to die, and then having sex when they didn’t. He remembers Ikki saying those words to him, just once, when he had to beg, because he needed something from him, and they thought that maybe that would fix them.

“Well, whatever it was, it was fun, wasn’t it?”

Ikki doesn’t answer. He tells himself that he’s glad he didn’t.

He just keeps lying. 


End file.
